278 SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 



by blood ; but inasmuch as, according to bis account, relatives 

 in tbe male line go on calling one another brother and sister, 

 and do not marry, as far as relationship can be traced, were it 

 to tlie tenth generation, and the same in the female line, the 

 very natural wieh to draw closer the family tie can only be ac- 

 complished by crossing the male and female line, the brother's 

 child marrying the sister's, and so on.^ 



The Chinese people is divided into a number of clans, each 

 distinguished by a name, which is borne by all its members, 

 and corresponds to a surname, or better to a clan-name, among 

 ourselves, for the wife adopts her husband's, and the sons and 

 daughters inherit it. The number of these clan-names is H- 

 mited; Davis thinks there are not much above a hundred, but 

 other writers talk of three hundred, and even of a thousand. 

 Now, the Chinese . law is that a man may not marry a woman 

 of his own surname, so that relationship by the male side, how- 

 ever distant, is an absolute bar to marriage. This stringent 

 prohibition of marriage between descendants of the male 

 branch would seem to be very old, for the Chinese refer its 

 origin to the mythic times of the Emperor Fu-hi, whose reign 

 is placed before the Hea dynasty, which began, according to 

 Chinese annals, in 2207 B.C. Fu-hi, it is related, divided the 

 people into 100 clans, giving each a name, " and did not allow 

 a man to marry a woman of the same name, whether a relative 

 or not, a law which is still actually in force." There appear to 

 be also prohibitions applying within a narrower range to rela- 

 tion on the female side, and to certain kinds of affinity. Du 

 Halde says, that " persons who are of the same family, or who 

 bear the same name, however distant their degree of affinity 

 may be, cannot marry together. Thus, the laws do not allow 

 two brothers to marry two sisters, nor a widower to marry his 

 son to the daughter of a widow whom he marries."^ 



In Siam, the seventh degree of blood-affinity is the limit 

 within which marriage is prohibited, with the exception that 



' Dubois, vol. i. p. 10. Manu, iii. 5. See Coleman, p. 291. 



2 Davis, vol. i. p. 264. Purchas, vol. iii. pp. 367, 394. Goguet, vol. iii. p. 328. 



Du Halde, Descr. de la Chine ; The Hague, 1736, vol. ii. p. 145. De MaUla, 

 vol. i. p. 6. 



